


feel it still

by bageldiscourse



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Moving In Together, Non-Linear Narrative, is there a tag for Oh My God They Were Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13327026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bageldiscourse/pseuds/bageldiscourse
Summary: Falling in love with the two of them was a slow, gradual thing that happened over several months and, in hindsight, something Kevin hadn’t noticed for an embarrassingly long time.He really should’ve seen it coming, is what he means.Whatever. He’s twenty-five, he’s not about to have a deep session of self-discovery about his feelings past Brady makes great PB&Js and he has a thing for Jimmy’s ability to turn absolutely anything into a cuddle session.





	feel it still

**Author's Note:**

> jimmy vesey has two hands, y'all. welcome to my ted talk

Kevin’s not really sure when it started.

Well — that’s not completely true. Depends on your definition of ‘it.’ Like, there’s a difference between acting on feelings and simply feeling them, and Kevin can confidently say he felt his feelings for a long while before doing something about them.

Kevin couldn’t tell you when he started to feel them, but he can tell you it must’ve been sometime during the winter, when the sun was only up for nine hours a day and Kevin had been around Jimmy and Brady for nearly all of them.

The climax of this story, though, starts the night they’re eliminated from the playoffs. They’re sitting on the couch in Kevin’s apartment that’s much too small for three hockey player-sized people, sharing a tub of cookie dough ice cream, watching _Friends_ and very deliberately not talking about hockey at all.

(See, Kevin was single when he bought this apartment and everything in it, and didn’t really have to think about the size of his couch or the bed in his guest room not having clean sheets every time Jimmy and Brady stay the night.

He’s still single three years later, just — slightly less so, maybe.

It’s complicated. Shut up.)

“So I was thinking,” Kevin starts.

“Hope you didn’t hurt yourself,” Jimmy chirps, grinning when Brady gives him an approving fist-bump.

“Hey, we didn’t all go to Harvard, okay,” Kevin says with an emphatic eye-roll. “Anyway, I was gonna ask if you guys would wanna move in with me this summer?”

Neither Brady nor Jimmy respond immediately, so Kevin continues, hardly rambling at all, thank you very much. “Just, I’ve been thinking about this, and we’ve both been paying rent on our own places only to stay at each other’s half the time, which is kind of a waste, considering you two drive me to practice anyway. We could split the rent and look for a bigger apartment and—”

“Dude, _yes_ ,” Brady interrupts, reaching over Jimmy and dipping his spoon into the ice cream in Kevin’s lap. “The three of us together, that’d be pretty fun.”

“Obviously, I’m down,” Jimmy says, “Just hoping you won’t get bored of us.”

“Impossible,” Kevin says, grinning, and like. He didn’t anticipate it being this easy, but he’s certainly not about to complain. “You two can start house hunting while I’m in Boston next week?” he offers, to which he gets two enthusiastic confirmations in response.

Two spoons dig into the tub of ice cream, a new episode of _Friends_ queues up on Netflix, and that’s that.

(That’s when he did something about it, anyway. Falling in love with the two of them was a slow, gradual thing that happened over several months and, in hindsight, something Kevin hadn’t noticed for an embarrassingly long time.

He really should’ve seen it coming, is what he means.

Whatever. He’s twenty-five, he’s not about to have a deep session of self-discovery about his feelings past Brady makes great PB&Js and he has a thing for Jimmy’s ability to turn absolutely anything into a cuddle session.)

* * *

Jimmy wears his heart on his sleeve, and Kevin would be living a fever dream to think the smile he has around Brady would ever be directed toward anyone else.

(Like, just — have you seen that smile?

Kevin hadn’t seen anyone look at another person that way, with such raw affection, until Jimmy.

He could wax poetic about that smile until the end of the world but the truth is words don’t do justice to how right it feels, seeing that smile in person, despite it never being directed toward himself.

Kevin could live in that feeling forever, completely satisfied.)

But love is a nuanced affair, and it’s possible Kevin isn’t as observant as he’d like to believe he is.

* * *

Heart. Sleeve.

Fast forward.

Jimmy, Brady, and Kevin find an apartment to move into by the end of the month.

Jimmy and Brady follow Kevin’s offer and start house-hunting while Kevin is away in Boston with his family, but they FaceTime him after every apartment they find, and Kevin flies back in the day before the three of them sign the lease on the apartment Brady and Jimmy decide is the one.

“You wanna know who lives on this street?” Brady says to Kevin, as Jimmy’s driving the three of them home later. (Kevin’s home, he should specify, although at this point it’s just as much Brady’s and Jimmy’s as it is Kevin’s.) “Tom Brady lives at the end of the street where we’ll be living in twenty-eight days.”

“Justin Timberlake, too,” Jimmy adds. “So sick.”

“It’s also twice as big as both our apartments _combined_ ,” Kevin says, because like, it goes without saying that that’s pretty cool, but someone has to be the adult in this trio. “You guys gotta help me pack my place, by the way.”

“Duh,” Jimmy says.

“We could start today,” Brady offers. “You can stay with us while we get your place all boxed up, if you want.”

“You two gonna miss me too much otherwise?” Kevin says, mostly teasing.

“Don’t think that’s possible with how often we see you,” Jimmy laughs, pulling into the parking garage below Kevin’s apartment.

“I think I have some empty boxes in the back of my closet we can start filling today,” Kevin says in the elevator up to his floor, fishing his keys out of his pocket. “I was thinking we’d start with the living room and then go to the kitchen, and then the two bedrooms last?”

“Yes, sir,” Brady says, giving a lazy mock-salute.

So they get to work.

* * *

The next morning, Kevin wakes up hardly expecting Jimmy and Brady to have stayed the night, let alone be making breakfast in borrowed pajamas in his kitchen.

But the unmistakable smell of burning bacon leads Kevin into his kitchen where Jimmy and Brady are flipping pancakes and silently panicking over the fact that they might’ve broken Kevin’s microwave.

“Good morning,” Kevin says, walking into the room. “What died in here?”

“Any chance we had of disappointing our nutritionists with a nice plate of bacon,” Brady says, frowning a little.

“Multitasking isn’t exactly our forte, I guess,” Jimmy says, apologetic.

“Microwave’s been broken since I moved in, don’t worry about it,” Kevin shrugs. “Pancakes look great, though. Wanna get the syrup while Brady gets some plates? I’ll get us some forks and knives.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jimmy says, and so the three of them get to work properly setting the table.

“We packed most of your closet while you were asleep,” Brady says over breakfast, with his mouth full.

“You sleep like a damn baby, by the way,” Jimmy says, smiling a little smugly. “Brady kept dropping shit and we thought for sure you’d wake up and be all grumpy about it—”

“I’m not _grumpy_ —”

“—but you didn’t even flinch, which was impressive, honestly,” Jimmy finishes, ignoring Kevin’s protest.

“We’re out of boxes, by the way,” Brady adds, over a mouthful of pancake. “We were gonna pick some up earlier before you woke up, but — uh, we got a little distracted.”

“Gross,” Kevin says, rolling his eyes, and while Brady smirks proudly, Jimmy just blushes around a forkful of pancake.

It’s a good morning.

* * *

Pause.

It’s easy to fall for both Jimmy and Brady at the same time, considering how intertwined they both are in Kevin’s mind.

Kevin loves Jimmy’s Brady smile, and Brady’s Jimmy blush.

And if he’d ever wondered where he fits into Brady-and-Jimmy, he figures it would be in the way it had been clear from the very start that Kevin is the balancing force in Jimmy and Brady’s relationship.

He’s the tiebreaker and the rational thinker, the middle ground in most of Jimmy and Brady’s arguments.

Something Jimmy and Brady can both always agree on, if nothing else.

Kevin’s not positive when Jimmy and Brady became Jimmy-and-Brady, nor does he have any idea of how Jimmy-Brady-and-Kevin came about, let alone _why_ it did.

But he’s here now, watching old reruns of _Chopped_ with Jimmy’s head in his lap and playing with Jimmy’s hair a little, while Brady attempts to make bacon grilled cheeses for dinner without like, burning their apartment down, and it’s nice, and, well — you couldn’t blame him for not questioning how this all happened.

* * *

So, that’s the official beginning.

Want to know the _un_ official beginning?

Let’s rewind a bit.

* * *

[january 2017]

Jimmy turns to Kevin as they’re changing out of gear after an especially brutal practice, and says, “Yo, Haysie, you gonna watch the Pats game later?”

That’s a question that hardly needs answering, but Kevin does anyway. “What kind of New Englander would I be if I didn’t?”

Jimmy grins, then. “Can Brady and I stop by to watch? Our TV doesn’t get the NFL package.”

“Sure,” Kevin says, slipping a Henley over his head, because it’s not like he’d rather watch by himself. “Game starts at 4, and maybe bring some snacks? I haven’t gone grocery shopping in forever.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jimmy says. “You want a ride home?”

“You know I do,” Kevin replies easily. “However else will I get my early morning Canadian pop fix?”

“Carly Rae Jepsen is the best popstar of our generation, and it’s important that we acknowledge that fact constantly,” Jimmy says, very solemnly. “C’mon, we’ll stop for coffee if you stop complaining about my _impeccable_ taste in music.”

“‘Impeccable,’ a big word for a big Harvard boy,” Kevin teases, as they walk out the door to meet up with Brady, the unforgiving cold hitting their noses instantly. “You’re buying.”

“Coffee run?” Brady asks, hopeful, falling into stride with the two of them.

“I’m buying, apparently,” Jimmy confirms.

“Tight,” Brady nods. “You know what I like.”

“Oh no, you’re coming in with me,” Jimmy says. “I’ve only got two hands and three drinks to buy.”

“Fine, fine,” Brady says, relenting.

“Unbelievable,” Kevin says, reveling in the utter uselessness of this conversation. “You two are like an old married couple, it’s the worst.”

“Don’t even pretend you don’t love us,” Brady grins, smug.

* * *

Once Kevin gets dropped off at his apartment afterward, he stress-cleans a good chunk of the place, starting with replacing the hand towels in his guest bathroom and ending with clearing his coffee table and rearranging some of the throw pillows on his couch as he waits for Jimmy and Brady to arrive.

He’s not nervous, per se, just — he doesn’t have people over often, so his apartment is kind of a mess.

(He’s sure Jimmy and Brady aren’t exactly neat freaks either, only two years removed from notoriously messy college dorms, but.

He wants to make a good first impression, is all.)

After that he showers, because he definitely still smells like hockey gear and death — which, truthfully, are simply distant relatives of each other — and he’s toweling off his hair in his bathroom when he hears Jimmy’s voice float through the hallway. “Haysie? We have Cheez-its!”

Kevin puts on a pair of clean-enough sweats and walks out to the living room, still running a towel through his damp hair. He grabs a handful of Cheez-its from the bowl Jimmy and Brady set out, shoves them in his mouth and says, with his mouth still mostly full, “Sweet, thanks guys.”

“Um,” Brady says, and his eyes fixate on Kevin’s hands and hair for a second too long until he gets over himself and says, “You left your door open?”

“Wasn’t sure when you guys would drop by, so I left it open when I went to shower,” Kevin explains. “Speaking of which, I’m gonna go — put on a shirt, but let me know if the game starts before I’m back out?”

“Of course, yeah,” Jimmy says.

Kevin finds a t-shirt in his bedroom and walks back out with it so as not to keep them waiting too long, slipping it on and sitting on the couch in the space between Jimmy and Brady in one swift move.

“Do you guys want some water or anything?” Kevin asks, and it’s awkward for one short-lived minute when both boys politely decline.

The game starts not long after, though, and Jimmy says, “Since we’re playing Minny, we’ve gotta pull out a W here, Haysie. My relationship is on the line.”

Brady snorts at that, and says, “No way my Vikings blow this.”

“Practically identical records means it’s gonna be a close one, but you never bet against the Pats,” Kevin says thoughtfully, which earns him a high-five from Jimmy.

“We’ll have to see, I guess,” Brady says, leaning forward to grab the bowl of Cheez-its and stuff a few in his mouth.

Kevin’s expecting plenty of chirps and teasing, no matter which way the game goes, but it’s still tied at nothing going into halftime, and nobody’s said a word since the game started.

Halftime comes and goes, and so does the third quarter, and then New England scores the game-winning touchdown with just under a minute left in the fourth quarter.

“We’re breaking up,” Brady announces, as the Patriots make the conversion and the score on the TV changes to 7-0. “Holy shit. Fifty seven seconds left to play.”

“This is the best day of my entire life,” Jimmy says, and he can’t stop grinning, and Kevin _has_ to laugh at the two of them.

“Never bet against New England, baby,” Kevin grins, watching the clock wind down until the final buzzer goes off. “You guys wanna stay and play some video games? Bet I can kick both your asses at Mario Kart.”

“Is that a challenge?” Brady smirks.

“You’re on,” Jimmy says, as Kevin tosses them both controllers.

Jimmy and Brady suspiciously lose count of who’s won more games after Kevin wins six straight, but they stay long enough for Kevin to order an extra pizza for dinner.

“Do you two just wanna stay over?” Kevin asks, flipping channels until he finds a decent movie for them to watch. “I just did laundry like, yesterday, so the sheets are clean in the guest room, and I’m sure I’ve got some clothes you can borrow.”

They don’t have a game or practice tomorrow, which is as good an incentive as Jimmy and Brady will get to say yes, so Jimmy shrugs and says, “I mean, if you’re not sick of us yet.”

* * *

Kevin supposes, in hindsight, maybe it started there.

* * *

Fast forward: Kevin has always firmly held the belief that unpacking is the worst part of the entire moving experience, and it’s certainly the case now, even with two extra sets of hands to help him sort through dozens upon dozens of boxes.

He’s not the only one who thinks as much, anyway, as Jimmy and Brady are whining endlessly over their dinner of leftover Chinese about how they can’t even sleep in their own bed that night, because they’ve been putting off setting up their bedframe and cleaning their sheets all day, and finding pillowcases that match their comforter is just impossible when they’re knee deep in boxes—

“You can sleep in my bed, if you want,” Kevin offers. “It’s definitely too big for one person, we can fit three easy.”

“You set up your bed already?”

“Not yet,” Kevin admits. “But with three of us we can get it done in thirty minutes, tops.”

“Okay, sure,” Brady agrees, then gets up. “C’mon, we’ll start now.”

Offering to let the two boys he’s crushing on sleep in his bed is one of the top-three worst things Kevin’s ever done to himself, easily. Like, honestly, he’d love to go back in time and ask Past Kevin what the hell he was _thinking_. This is like, Hall of Fame levels of a shitty idea, he realizes, as Brady’s starfished himself around Kevin and Jimmy’s fast asleep on Kevin’s other side with his head nestled on Kevin’s shoulder.

It is, surprisingly, less uncomfortable than it has any right to be, but Kevin still loses sleep over how natural this feels, like they’re pieces of a puzzle that fit together on the first try.

Kevin wakes up slowly the next morning to an empty bed and the scent of burnt toast floating in from the kitchen, which — really, Brady and Jimmy should’ve known better than to overestimate their abilities when it comes to using any cooking appliance, at this point, considering the last time their attempt to cook anything went completely awry, but.

Not today, apparently.

“In my defense,” Brady says when Kevin’s walked a whole three steps into the room, looking vaguely guilty, “what are the odds I’d burn fucking _bread_.”

Kevin sighs, extremely dramatic and long-suffering. “It’s fine. I’ve been meaning to drag you two to the new brunch spot that opened down the street, anyway. Grabs tells me they’re the best waffles in the city, even swears by ‘em.”

“I could go for some waffles,” Brady agrees.

Jimmy sighs contentedly at the mention of waffles and says, “You’re the _best_ , Haysie. How’d you know waffles are my favorite.”

Kevin just turns to the direction of the bathroom and mumbles, “Dibs on first shower,” so he doesn’t have to keep being looked at by Jimmy like he hung the fucking moon, which — if you’ve ever been looked at like that by Jimmy Vesey, you’d understand how that’s objectively Too Much. He’s like, ninety-five percent sure he’s blushing, which is just downright embarrassing.

An hour and a half and a plate of eggs and bacon later, Kevin’s mostly coping healthily.

(It’s just, like. Fuck, man, you know?)

Fast forward a day or two, and Kevin’s in the living room, setting up the coffee table which has more screws than is absolutely necessary for any piece of household furniture, in Kevin’s opinion.

Jimmy’s in the kitchen unpacking plates and bowls, forks and spoons and knives, and Brady trying to set up their toaster beside him.

“Yo, Haysie, toss me the screwdriver,” Brady calls.

“It’s somewhere over here, come get it, lazy ass,” Kevin calls back.

“ _You’re_ the lazy ass,” Brady grumbles, as he makes his way through the mess of boxes leading to where Kevin is doing a truly awful job of organizing the table pieces, but mostly staring wistfully at the blank ceiling above him, as if the table will magically put itself together if Kevin stares hard enough.

Brady’s foot gets caught on the book one of them had dropped on the way to the bedroom the night before, and he stumbles unceremoniously right into Kevin’s lap.

“Sorry, um—” Brady says, and Kevin just kind of nods, his breathing hot and heavy, now. Brady bites his lip, looking at Kevin’s lips like he’s thinking _yes_ , and then he leans in at the same time that Kevin does, almost like a pre-negotiated understanding between them, planned to a T all the way down to Kevin’s steadying hand on Brady’s hip, but the truth is that Kevin’s heartbeat, loud and erratic in his ears, and Brady’s careful hesitation and shy smile would beg to differ, really.

There’s a million reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this, Kevin acknowledges, starting and ending with Jimmy being in the next room over, but once Brady’s lips connect with his it’s hard to think about anything but how right it feels for more than a split-second.

Kevin’s not sure how long they’re kissing, just the two of them and the soft hum of the heater, until Jimmy walks in the room half-looking through a stack of mail as he says, “Yo, Brady, you left the—”

He looks up, then, and the hand Kevin had laced in Brady’s hair stills, and Brady starts to pull away, sitting up properly, still in Kevin’s lap and looking expectantly at him as Jimmy says, “I mean, you could’ve at least _waited_ for me.”

“I’m — wait, what?” Kevin says, because of all the reactions he was bracing himself for, this one was far down on the list.

“We should take this to bed,” Jimmy says, thoughtful, and when Brady nods and walks out of the room with Jimmy, all Kevin can do is follow them both.

“We’ll explain, but — can I kiss you first?” Jimmy asks, licks his lips, and how can Kevin possibly say anything but _yes_ , so he does.

“Okay, so,” Brady says. “We like you a lot, and we’ve been waiting for you to notice for awhile, and like. You didn’t? So. I just went for it, I guess.”

Jimmy shrugs. “Not much else to it, honestly.”

There’s a lot Kevin wants to ask the two of them right now, and he can’t gather his thoughts coherently long enough to remember the order he’s supposed to be asking them in, but there’s one question that’s absolutely more important to him than the rest right now, and that’s—

“How long is awhile?”

Jimmy grins and leans down to kiss Kevin and then says, breathless, “Since the winter — for me, at least.”

And like. That’s a long time.

“Take off your shirt,” Kevin says. “Both of you. Holy fuck.”

Jimmy easily obliges, lifts his shirt over his head before kissing Kevin again, down his jaw and neck and down to his collarbone, before tugging at his shirt and saying, “Up.”

“We could’ve been hooking up for _months_ ,” Kevin says, mostly to himself. “Unbelievable.”

“So here’s my plan,” Jimmy says, biting his lip a little, as if he doesn’t know it drives Kevin absolutely crazy. “First I’m gonna go down on you, and if all goes well, I’m hoping you’ll let me come on your abs afterward.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Kevin mutters. “Yeah, c’mon. Let’s do it.”

He starts to undo his belt and pants, but Jimmy shoves his hand away and says, “Let me,” and when Kevin looks down he sees that smile he knows so well by now, with a dash of lust mixed in, too.

(And it’d be unfair to call it just a Brady smile, at this point.)

* * *

“By the way, just so we’re on the same page,” Jimmy says into the darkness, afterward. “You _do_ like both of us too, right?”

Kevin has to suppress a laugh, then, as he says, “Obviously I do, yeah.”

“Sweet,” both Jimmy and Brady say at the same time, which — yeah, Kevin supposes it is.

* * *

They set up both Jimmy’s and Brady’s beds the next morning, though it becomes a rare occurrence that all three ever get used on the same night.

Eventually, the three of them fall into an easy routine that works for the three of them, where they manage to exist as somewhat responsible adults and also make out at every possible opportunity, because balance is an important virtue.

Kevin will always be, without fail, the last one to wake up, stumbling out of bed — with a cup of coffee in hand more often than not, because both his boyfriends are angels — and into the kitchen where Brady will be making PB&Js for breakfast.

On days where Jimmy is feeling adventurous, there will be only slightly burnt pancakes, too, which are the days Kevin tends to like best, if he’s being honest.

Afterward, he’ll often be able to wrestle at least one of his boyfriends back into bed to cuddle, because outside of training, they don’t have any real obligations, and plus, Jimmy and Brady are great cuddlers, and it’s Kevin’s responsibility as their boyfriend to get the most out of that as possible.

It’s a pretty sweet situation they’ve got going, and Kevin wouldn’t trade doing absolutely nothing with the two of them all day for the world.

* * *

[epilogue — january 2018]

Play.

Though Kevin doesn’t mind road games, the repetition of it all tends to bore him sometimes.

They’re in Pittsburgh, he’s rooming with Jimmy this time around, and Brady snuck into the room once his own roommate fell asleep, so the three of them are half-watching a movie and mostly making out.

“Haysie?” Brady says, as Kevin’s in the middle of sucking a hickey into Jimmy’s collarbone.

“Is it important?” Kevin hums, barely looking up. “Little busy here.”

“I just think it’s great that we’re dating,” Brady says, very sincerely. “I’m just — happy, y’know? I’m real happy.”

Kevin looks up, rolls his eyes at Brady’s sudden fondness. “C’mere, you softie,” he says, leaning over Jimmy to pull Brady into a kiss.

They’re interrupted after a moment when, from underneath them, Jimmy says, “Hey, I’m glad we’re all in agreement here, but I was under the assumption I was getting my dick sucked sometime tonight, so.”

“Fuckin’ boner killer, Vese, I swear,” Kevin laughs. Brady leans over, runs his hand through Jimmy’s hair as Kevin kisses down Jimmy’s stomach, picking up where he left off.

* * *

“For the record, I love both you guys too,” Jimmy says, not much later, his breathing still a little uneven as he tries to regain his composure.

(So: Kevin doesn’t know when exactly it started, but he knows he never wants it to end.)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the portugal. the man song  
> i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/bboesers) with more rarepair bullshit


End file.
